“How are you doing?”
It’s an ordinary, everyday question. But some people have a knack for asking it more like, “No, really. How are you doing?”
I’ve got more than my share of them. Over the last four days, three of them pried. I skirted one, dumped on the other, and indulged the last one.
It wasn’t until listening to the end of the podcast episode I posted about yesterday that the one word to describe how I’m doing surfaced. And it’s one I have never used for myself. I’ve felt and experienced it, just never declared it to be a current condition.
Heartbroken.
Kate: If we think of ourselves as a very sad but also kind of broken in certain parts person, it can feel like, well, that’s not the person who is going to be able to help very much, do very much. We’re already consumed by all the things that have made our lives difficult or tragic in the first place. We are already too aware of the fact that we are living inside of like crosscurrents of things we can’t fix. Kids with intractable problems. Parents with intractable problems. Jobs with intractable problems. But you and I both agree that there’s something weird that happens to the broken hearted, is that there’s like, a kind of an inside-out-ness that happens that can make us maybe exactly the right people to live in unfinished times.
Parker: I think so. This level of engagement, either in politics or in personal and communal life seems to me to require the kind of opening that can comes through broken heartedness. Absolutely. So just as you said, I’ve thought a lot about the fact that there are two ways for the heart to break. It can shatter into shards and just lie useless on the floor, never to be put back together again. Or you can exercise your heart on a daily basis by taking in the little losses, the little deaths, you know, those things that are feel hard to absorb, the news that’s hard to absorb, take it and let it exercise that muscle the way a runner exercises muscles so they won’t snap under stress, and the heart has a chance then to become so supple that it will break open into largeness rather than apart in into shards. And, you know, the most trustworthy people in my life are people who have known broken heartedness, and those who have known it in depths. Those are the people I can go to and say, and tell it the way it is for me. And then, and in the process, experience healing. They don’t have answers for me anymore than I have answers for them. But we can have a conversation rooted in broken heartedness and honesty about that experience that goes somewhere humanly, right?
In my inside-out-ness, I have to say I’ve probably been heartbroken for years without acknowledging it. The recent storms and reactions to the election have brought me to this awareness that I’m oddly thankful for.
I ask myself what’s this about. I didn’t personally experience loss from any of the three hurricanes. Nor did I personally lose a bid for public office. What’s there to be brokenhearted about?
The answer may seem obvious to you, but it’s not always been obvious to me. My Enneagram 1, Myers Briggs ISTJ self tends to be pretty cut and dry. But not recently. At least not these last three months.
I’m leaning into the belief that loving your neighbor as yourself means seeing ourselves as one. When the community hurts, you hurt. When the community loses, you lose. When any portion of the country cries and mourns, you cry and mourn.
The years of brokenheartedness I’m most aware of has to do with my personal church history. To see the church in the middle of the polarization of the country these last five years continues to cut deep. This last week, my heart jolted, even collapsed, as one side hurries to make false biblical comparisons while the other huddles in fear and shock. It’s war. And it’s heartbreaking.
On my run this morning I asked myself two questions: 1) How long do I allow myself to be heartbroken over these two things that personally don’t impact me? 2) What am I doing about this status?
I answered the first one with more questions:
- Is there a formula? Like, three times the amount of time it takes for all the debris to disappear.
- Isn’t there more to recovery than just removing and repairing the visible damage?
- Feels like there’s grief everywhere, right? How long does that take?
- God’s probably been heartbroken over the Church for longer than I’ve been alive. Where does that leave me?
- Feels like heartbreak is part of life, and I’m just now owning it. Or at least on behalf of my neighbor. I’ve missed it for a long time, right?
As for question two, my best answer for my spirit was this: Don’t Rush.
- Don’t Rush to Retort
- Don’t Rush to Judge
- Don’t Rush to Wholeness
- Don’t Rush to Solutions
- Don’t Rush to Fix
- Don’t Rush to Start the Day
- Don’t Rush to Comfort
To the one I skirted, I’m heartbroken. There. I said it.
Cover photo credit: https://www.instagram.com/theoriginalrtpix?igsh=MTkydWQ1MG9qMnJiaA==
